With all that ambition and all that national
susceptibility the whole nation was, from the highest to the lowest,
pervaded by the most thorough sense of impotence. Every one was
constantly listening to learn the sentiments of Rome, the liberal
man no less than the servile; they thanked heaven, when the dreaded
decree was not issued; they were sulky, when the senate gave them to
understand that they would do well to yield voluntarily in order that
they might not need to be compelled; they did what they were obliged
to do, if possible, in a way offensive to the Romans, "to save forms";
they reported, explained, postponed, evaded, and, when all this would
no longer avail, yielded with a patriotic sigh.

Their proceedings
might have claimed indulgence at any rate, if not approval, had their
leaders been resolved to fight, and had they preferred the destruction
of the nation to its bondage; but neither Philopoemen nor Lycortas
thought of any such political suicide--they wished, if possible,
to be free, but they wished above all to live. Besides all this, the
dreaded intervention of Rome in the internal affairs of Greece was not
the arbitrary act of the Romans, but was always invoked by the Greeks
themselves, who, like boys, brought down on their own heads the rod
which they feared.

The reproach repeated -ad nauseam- by the erudite
rabble in Greek and post-Greek times--that the Romans had been
at pains to stir up internal discord in Greece--is one of the most
foolish absurdities which philologues dealing in politics have ever
invented. It was not the Romans that carried strife to Greece--which
in truth would have been "carrying owls to Athens"--but the Greeks
that carried their dissensions to Rome.